Jean wrote,

> But my experience makes me wonder if dads are being sold a bill of goods
> that perpetuates a "bonding envy" as suspect as the popular theory of
> "you-know-what envy" in females!
>
I have long believed breast envy to exist. It is very plausible, when
you consider the shock of a little boy when he first learns he won't be
able to nurse his babies. In one of my previous lives, I studied
matriarchal and patriarchal patterns in literature and culture. It is
understandable that Freud, and later Lacan,  developed their theories
within the framework of male dominance and that women, in a culture in
which they were minimized and disempowered, would crave for symbols of
power. It is also clear that if women were valued for mothering, the
whole perspective was / would be radically different.
Jo-Anne

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